Topware and Reality Pump (who previously worked on the Two Worlds games) have just announced a survival horror game called, well, Sacrilegium. Starring a lady called Alex, it’s an international tale of horror and combat, in which you’ll meet numerous unsavoury characters, and uncover occult plots in North America and Europe. The gallery of images show a classically spooky world, where everyone is doing their business at night. The feature list talks about combat and motion capture, stuff, but also – oddly – eye-tracking: “Eye-tracking: 3D-ET™ – the revolutionary proprietary technology that offers three dimensions, providing a more real and captivating experience than any other implementation available today. Already tested and reverently welcomed by actual PC players.”

I think it would be genuinely, awkwardly hilarious to make mock of the clothing women get in video games by giving that same clothing to every character, male, female, android, or lizard monster from hell.

Corseted wench combined with gaze-tracking technology makes me wonder if there’s going to be a sociology meta-experiment here. Not sure I like the idea of a game that realises what a perv I…er, some people can be. :P

That character design makes me feel kind of sorry for them. Like, somebody worked hard on that and probably thought it looked really cool and edgy. Alas, it just looks pathetic and strangely old-fashioned, like it came from a cheapo early-2000s knockoff adventure game, or a 15-year-old goth’s Deviantart. In fact the whole thing is kind of that way, with its desperate bigging up of QTEs and use of the word “tropes”. Misery inducing.

Hopefully there’s a bit where it’s tracking your eyes while you speak to someone in a close-up shot. If you look around the guy’s head too long or stare at the background he suddenly goes:-

“HEY, WHAT AM I NOT EXCITING ENOUGH FOR YOU!!” and it actually changes the course of the storyline.

Since its a horror game they could have people doing horrible things the first time you look at them then normal the susequent times. Like they have miniature kidney-like pustule organs protruding from their faces, then next time you look they are like “Oh hey Alex! Nice day isn’t it?”

I honestly don’t know what these strikeforce levels are, but the point is QTE’s in any way, shape or form makes me want to bash the developers with a keyboard. Preferably an old and really sturdy one. In the shape of a purple dildo.

From their site:
“Alone, surrounded, and trapped in darkness, facing the Moroi – modern vampires that make the ancient legends seem as fairy tales – Alex is forced to take on the all-too-real and bloodthirsty children of the night.

Thrust in the middle of a deadly plot filled with trope-shattering twists, intrigue, and betrayal, Alex must call upon her instincts, skills, knowledge and devotion to survive and make it out alive with her mind and soul intact – as well as save her friends from a fate in which even death seems a blessing.

Slicing through all the tired stereotypes and clichés filling this currently popular genre, while respecting the foundations that make the subject matter so timelessly thrilling, Sacrilegium™ stops at nothing to deliver the most nightmarish entertainment, a captivating story and unparalleled thrills.”

Trope shattering? Slicing through stereotypes? If this is anything like their last game, I hope you can jury rig the most powerful weapon in the game within the first 10 minutes using the things you find around you, and then gain the power to resurrect all dead enemies that proceed to do housework.